The Ghana Association of Biomedical Laboratory Scientists (GABMLS) has served notice of an imminent strike action, starting August 1, 2016.
According to the association, the Ministry of Health has failed to take pragmatic steps to launch and implement the three national health laboratory policy documents which were completed and duly signed by the then Minister for Health, Sherry Ayittey, in 2013.
Making the resolution at the end of its second quarter National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held on June 24, 2016 at its national secretariat, GABMLS said the delay in launching the policy documents —
National Health Laboratory Policy, National Health Laboratory Accreditation Policy and National Health Laboratory Strategic Policy— was hampering the effective and efficient delivery of medical laboratory services in Ghana.
Thomas Kwabena Gyampomah, GABMLS president, said the efforts made by the leadership of the association through stakeholder engagements, meetings, and regional/national congresses communiqués to call on the Ministry of Health to take appropriate steps to launch the policies had proven futile.
He said several meetings had been held between the leadership of GABMLS and the chief director of the Ministry of Health, the director of Policy Planning Monitoring and Evaluation (PPME) of the Ministry of Health, the minister for Health, since June 2015 with the latest meeting held on January 12, 2016, where the director of Administration of the Ministry sat in for the Minister of Health, but indications they got are that the Ministry of Health is not committed to ensuring that the policy documents are launched.
“The association is highly unhappy and feels disappointed in the manner in which the financial and technical investments made by our donor partner (CDC-US) into developing these three documents have been allowed to go waste to the detriment of medical laboratory growth and development in this country.
We find that our demands are not unreasonable in any way, and we are looking forward to the Ministry of Health immediately resolving all issues relating to the policies and get them launched for implementation by 30th July 2016 when the association will be closing from its 2016 annual national congress, to avert the very likely tendency of the entire membership of the association resolving to embark on demonstrations and indefinite industrial strike across the country, effective 1st August, 2016.
We hope and anticipate that the Ministry of Health will take this notice very seriously, and take the necessary action to launch these documents on time so we can continue to provide excellent, uninterrupted medical laboratory services to promote quality healthcare delivery to the citizens of Ghana,” he said.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri